That Sir Lucien was deeply infatuated she was not slow to discover, and with an address perfected by experience and a determination to avoid the easy path inherited from a father whose scrupulous honesty had ruined his professional prospects, she set to work to win esteem as well as admiration.

Sir Lucien was first surprised, then piqued, and finally interested by such unusual tactics.  The second phase was the dangerous one for Rita, and during a certain luncheon at Romanos her fate hung in the balance.  Sir Lucien realized that he was in peril of losing his head over this tantalizingly pretty girl who gracefully kept him at a distance, fencing with an adroitness which was baffling, and Sir Lucien Pyne had set out with no intention of doing anything so preposterous as falling in love.  Keenly intuitive, Rita scented danger and made a bold move.  Carelessly rolling a bread-crumb along the cloth: 

“I am giving up the stage when the run finishes,” she said.

“Indeed,” replied Sir Lucien imperturbably.  “Why?”

“I am tired of stage life.  I have been invited to go and live with my uncle in New York and have decided to accept.  You see”—­she bestowed upon him a swift glance of her brilliant eyes—­“men in the theatrical world are not all like you.  Real friends, I mean.  It isn’t very nice, sometimes.”

Sir Lucien deliberately lighted a cigarette.  If Rita was bluffing, he mused, she had the pluck to make good her bluff.  And if she did so?  He dropped the extinguished match upon a plate.  Did he care?  He glanced at the girl, who was smiling at an acquaintance on the other side of the room.  Fortune’s wheel spins upon a needle point.  By an artistic performance occupying less than two minutes, but suggesting that Rita possessed qualities which one day might spell success, she had decided her fate.  Her heart was beating like a hammer in her breast, but she preserved an attitude of easy indifference.  Without for a moment believing in the American uncle, Sir Lucien did believe, correctly, that Rita Dresden was about to elude him.  He realized, too, that he was infinitely more interested than he had ever been hitherto, and more interested than he had intended to become.

This seemingly trivial conversation was a turning point, and twelve months later Rita Dresden was playing the title role in The Maid of the Masque.  Sir Lucien had discovered himself to be really in love with her, and he might quite possibly have offered her marriage even if a dangerous rival had not appeared to goad him to that desperate leap—­for so he regarded it.  Monte Irvin, although considerably Rita’s senior, had much to commend him in the eyes of the girl—­and in the eyes of her mother, who still retained a curious influence over her daughter.  He was much more wealthy than Pyne, and although the latter was a baronet, Irvin was certain to be knighted ere long, so that Rita would secure the appendage of “Lady” in either case.  Also, his reputation promised a more reliable husband than Sir Lucien could be expected to make.  Moreover, Rita liked him, whereas she had never sincerely liked and trusted Sir Lucien.  And there was a final reason—­ of which Mrs. Esden knew nothing.